02033cam a22002537 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100001600070245011400086260006600200490004200266500001600308520088100324530006101205538007201266538003601338690011901374690009201493710004201585830007701627856003801704856003701742w10403NBER20161209103619.0161209s2004 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aHilt, Eric.10aIncentives in Corporationsh[electronic resource]:bEvidence from the American Whaling Industry /cEric Hilt. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2004.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w10403 aApril 2004.3 aIn the 1830s, when whaling was a prosperous American industry, a number of whaling corporations were chartered. All of them were short-lived. This paper analyzes the failure of corporations in American whaling, and argues that the corporate form was unable to create the incentives requisite for success in the industry. Most nineteenth-century whaling ventures were owned by a small number of local investors, and were configured to provide powerful incentives for their managers. The effect of the corporate form on productivity is analyzed using a newly-collected panel dataset of 874 whaling voyages. Many whaling corporations were managed by individuals who had previously (or would subsequently) manage ventures with the usual ownership structure. Using an individual-fixed-effects framework, a strong negative effect of the corporate form on productivity is identified. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aN5 - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aL2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior2Journal of Economic Literature class.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w10403.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1040341uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w10403